Motivating Engineering Educators to Engage in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy

Heidi Neck, Babson College

The evidence in support of entrepreneurship education is growing. Engineers graduating from American colleges and universities need to understand economic impact, job creation, society enhancing innovation, the financial value associated with innovation and commercialization, the soft skills of business, and the pportunity-to-action orientation of entrepreneurship. The Babson-Olin Symposium for Engineering Entrepreneurship Educators (SyE3) is funded by a three-year Partnerships for Innovation grant from the National Science Foundation with additional support from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. The primary goal of Babson- Olin SyE3 is to assist engineering faculty and technology entrepreneurs in teaching and applying entrepreneurship as a core feature of engineering education. This presentation describes the SyE3 program in terms of content, structure, and participants; discusses the primary learning goals and measures the accomplishment of these goals based on participant feedback; and outlines future offerings of the face-to-face and online programs.